


Routine

by ouro_boros



Series: Camaraderie Hard Won [4]
Category: Wooden Overcoats (Podcast)
Genre: Blanket Permission, Body Horror, Eric has a bit of a bad time, Gen, Marijuana, Podfic Welcome, Recreational Drug Use, Season 3 Spoilers, im only tagging that as a precaution. he just feels some weird things, mentions of Nana Crusoe, this is neither pro nor anti weed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23028670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ouro_boros/pseuds/ouro_boros
Summary: Georgie runs out of weed and doesn't feel like going off-island to get some. She tries her luck at Chapman's, and they end up discussing how much the Funns (and Georgie) hate him.
Relationships: Eric Chapman & Georgie Crusoe, theres a vague implication of chapyard but its more eric being a nervous wreck than actual chapyard
Series: Camaraderie Hard Won [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1194450
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Routine

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place sometime after season three, but probably before season four? Just since I don't know what happens there yet, obviously. Not really sure where it happens in relation to Sun Beams/After Life, but Georgie is NOT a fan of Eric.

It'd become fairly commonplace, in the format of their lives, for Eric Chapman to come knocking on the Funn's door. That format was why Eric was understandably surprised whenever a Funn, almost invariably Rudyard, entered Chapman's. That level of variation was why he was shocked when, half-way through his rounds, he discovered Georgie, standing by the snack table in his lobby.

"Oh hey, Eric."

Georgie placed a chunk of chocolate on her tongue, retracted it into her mouth, and chewed. In the meantime, he answered her greeting.

"Good afternoon, Georgie! How are you?"

"So," she said, getting down to business with a clear mouth. "Do you have any weed?"

No, he didn't, according to his first instinct. 

"Sorry," he said.

"Ah, no problem. I figured you were my best chance, but—"

Then he realized he did, in rather improbable quantities, have multiple strains of weed as well as some edibles.

"Nevermind," he said, "yes I do, would you like me to grab some for you?"

"What, are you selling?"

"I—no. I just didn't want to invite myself."

"I mean, I don't really want to invite you either," she said wryly enough that Eric thought (hoped) she might be joking but had no clue either way, "but I think it's just good manners, y'know? Someone gives you weed, you smoke with them. If you want to, of course. Do you even smoke?"

"It's been a while, but yes. I do."

"Cool."

They stood for a moment in silence, Eric waiting for further conversation, Georgie waiting to be led wherever the weed was.

"So—"

"Right!" Eric caught on and led the way.

* * *

"Thanks for this, Eric. I'm fresh out and I can't be bothered to go to the mainland."

"I'm glad to be of use."

Eric watched her take a hit, a little disappointed in himself for how mesmerized he was in the grace of her movements. He wasn't there, in that frame of mind anymore. He wasn't in love with her. At least, no more than anyone else was.

"Out of curiosity," he asked, "how often do you… do this?"

She released the smoke with a deep exhale, watching it as it rose to the ceiling.

"Not very," she answered. "Obviously I couldn't salvage any from the wreck—"

"What wreck?"

"Y'know, when I came to Piffling after my Nana's boat wrecked at sea and we swam ashore."

_ "What?" _

Georgie forged onward, "Once we settled in I went out and got a good amount, for Nana's pain, and we’d smoke together sometimes but it was mainly for her. Since she... y’know, doesn’t need it anymore, I guess I’ve been using it as a distraction. This is the first time I’ve been out since she’s been gone, so. Not often."

“I… really didn’t mean for that to come up, I’m sorry.”

“That woman  _ loved _ weed.”

Georgie either wasn’t listening or was pretending not to hear, neither of which he minded.

“I mean, at the rate she went through the stuff, you’d think she’d broken every bone in her body. I had to refill her supply like, every two weeks. Rudyard never asked what I needed the time off for, after the first few months he kind of got used to it. Hated it, asked why I couldn’t just go on the weekends, but never actually asked what I was doing. Then you showed up—that was a big distraction. I don’t think he’s noticed yet that I stopped since Nana got sick. She didn’t like smoking near the end, it numbed the decent stuff and made the wrong stuff worse.”

The mood was down through the floor. Eric meditated on what she’d said and tried to find something neutral to comment on.

"I uh... forget how you haven't been here much longer than me."

"Weird, right? I guess when you're a decent person other people warm up to you faster."

"I think Piffling warmed up to me fairly—oh."

"Yeahhh."

She handed him the bong, already prepped for him. He took the hit, then handed it back.

"Why... Why do they hate me."

Judging by most of the town’s opinions on Eric, she could guess who he meant.

"They don't hate you. I mean, they do, significantly more than they hate everyone else, but it's a different kind of hate, I think. Rudyard doesn't hate you like he hates, say, power outages. Those make him tense and paranoid. You used to, but not so much anymore. You're a known entity now."

"O....kay, so if he doesn't hate me like a power outage, then..."

"Rudyard hates you like he hates..." She thought deeply, then decided, "raffles. Don't make that face."

"It's just a very strange thing to hate!" Eric laughed, the long untouched weed beginning to hit him.

"Raffles are random, yeah? And Rudyard is  _ very  _ unlucky. So no matter what he does, he'll always lose. Whereas you, you are very  _ lucky, _ so unless you do something incredibly wrong, you'll always win."

"But... Things between us aren't random. I run a business, he runs a business, people go to the service they prefer. That's not random."

"Neither are raffles."

"You... You said they were. Just a second ago. That raffles were random."

"Fortune favors the... whatever! I don't know, I think there's a lot of phrases that essentially boil down to 'random-ness is a load of crap.' Y'know, in programming, you can ask a computer for a random number, but it just looks random. It follows rules that we can't understand, and that's why it looks like it does. But actually, the number isn't random at all. And the best computer scientists in the world can't figure out how to get actual random numbers. So why should raffles be able to do what computers can't?"

"That either makes a lot of sense, or we're both just high."

"It can be both."

Laughing, eager for the interaction to continue, Eric asked, “Alright, what does Antigone hate me like then?"

"Oh." Georgie paused to think. "Antigone just… deeply dislikes you. You threaten her livelihood, make a mockery of her art."

"Oh," Eric echoed.

The mood significantly lowered, Georgie added, "If it makes you feel any better, she doesn't hate you as much as she wants to. I mean, it's more on principle than anything else. She doesn't talk about you as much as Rudyard does, but that's a hard standard to meet."

She'd kind of thought that would bring Eric's smile back to his face. Not that she was especially attached to it, only that he looked wrong without it. It wasn't even that actually, she just didn't like being on the hook for Eric's emotions. She wouldn't be able to keep up. The man was a mess, and Georgie didn't have the energy to play therapist.

She sighed and asked, "How are you and Rudyard anyway?"

Just because she didn't have the energy to play therapist didn't mean she didn't have the energy to use her boss as an out.

"We're… bad? He hates me. What do you mean 'me and Rudyard?' We're not a couple."

His own poorly chosen word made him flush.

"I mean, um. Not a pair. Not a, a duo. Not—"

"You're stuck in a synonym loop, Eric, I know what you mean."

"Oh, good," he sighed.

"Y'know what I hate you like, Eric?"

He stiffened.

"No," he said in a way that asked "do I want to?"

"I hate you for the same reason that I love my nana."

He stared at her, wide-eyed. His whites didn't look bloodshot, but there was something in his face that had an unsteady feeling. It pleased Georgie more than it probably should have.

“Nana did whatever she wanted. She was self-reliant, and  _ free, _ and I’ve always wanted to be like her. I always will.”

Georgie was holding the bong, neither prepping it nor handing it back, nor even looking at it. She was meeting his stare, and he was terrified in the knowledge that he couldn’t look away. It felt like she’d hooked into his pupils and his eyes would be torn out if he shifted them the slightest centimeter. So  _ this _ was why he hadn’t smoked in a while.

“You do that too,” she continued. “Whatever you want. All the time. The difference is,  _ she _ thought about the people around her first.”

After a beat of prolonged staring—and  _ god, _ Eric could feel his pulse everywhere, he knew that if he lost focus for a second, some part of him would float away and never come back, not to mention his eyes that would be laying bloody and useless on the floor—Georgie shook her head and stood, leaving the bong. His vision went blurry for a second without the threat of Georgie’s hooks, but as she walked away he almost managed to get himself together. He still felt as though he were slightly to the left of his own body.

“Georgie—” he called after her when she opened the door.

“What.”

“I’m not… I don’t… I  _ want _ to be better.”

“Then do it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Most… most of the time I don’t even know when I’m doing something wrong, and even when I do know, I still don’t know  _ what _ I’m doing wrong. How can I be better if I can’t tell what’s bad?”

She shrugged.

“Practice. You’ll figure it out.”

And she left. It took Eric fifteen minutes before he learned how to walk again, though he could have sworn it had been hours.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I've had mixed experiences with marijuana, overall I'd say I'm a fan in moderation. It's not super healthy to use it as a distraction like Georgie mentions, but I've met multiple people who found it really helpful in the grieving process. Of course, it is more complex for her since it reminds her so strongly of her Nana.
> 
> Also, this makes 4 out of 4 fics in this series that end with Eric feeling empty inside!  
> [You can find me at oury-boros on Tumblr!](https://oury-boros.tumblr.com/)


End file.
